22.03.2005

St. Petersburg, Russia

HELCOM – A HEAVYWEIGHT ACTRESS IN THE BALTIC REGION

Speech by Anne Christine Brusendorff, Executive Secretary of the Helsinki Commission (HELCOM) at the VI International Environmental Forum “Baltic Sea Day”, 22-23 March 2005, St. Petersburg, Russia

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Allow me – just for some time to dwell on the role of HELCOM in the region. This, naturally, has to be done in the light of the EU enlargement last year as well as the outcome and decisions taken during our HELCOM Bremen Ministerial Meeting in 2003. I think that no place could be more appropriate than St. Petersburg to do this. The EU enlargement brought about significant political changes in the Baltic region. It also had a profound impact on the environmental priorities of the Contracting Parties, with uniform environmental legislation being applicable in large parts of the catchment area of the Baltic Sea and at the same time also increasing the work loads of the Contracting Parties, to both contribute to the EU work and to implement nationally the EU decisions.

In this new political context, HELCOM also puts a lot of emphasis on continued cooperation with the Russian Federation. We emphasise the equal partnership among the states surrounding the Baltic Sea and the role of HELCOM acting as a bridge between EU and Russia in securing that the same environmental standards are being implemented throughout the Baltic Sea and its catchment area.

During my presentation I would like to focus on the role of HELCOM in the region – firstly as a “mouthpiece” of the Baltic (pursuing Baltic-specific actions within HELCOM as well as within other international organisations) and secondly her key role in drawing up an action plan, together with other stakeholders in the region, aimed at obtaining a healthy Baltic Sea, taking into account all the various uses and users.

The role of HELCOM – the mouthpiece of the region 

Even within an enlarged European Union there is a clear need to take into account regional specifics – or should I say even a greater need. This is basically due to two fundamental elements – the different environmental conditions and sensitivities of the European Seas to various human impacts and the different pressures experienced by these seas. I think in this forum there is no need to remind you of the sensitivity of our sea, both due to its natural characteristics as well as due to the activities carried out at sea and in the catchment area. This also means that the role of HELCOM - as the guardian of our sea and mouthpiece of our region, channelling the specific needs for addressing our specific situation - is a crucially important one. This is a role we have pursued – with good results – both by ourselves and in various other international organisations.

Without in any way wanting to be complete, let me just mention, as an example, the recognition that HELCOM has obtained from the international community in defining the sensitivity of the Baltic Sea and the high density of ships in it, which has led to more stringent discharge regulations for ships sailing in the Baltic Sea than in other world oceans. In 2001, after the biggest oil incident in the Baltic Sea area in 20 years, we rushed to jointly pursue initiatives within the International Maritime Organisation (still having due regard to the international nature of shipping), decided on the implementation of international rules and standards with the strictest possible content and on top of that added to or filled vacuums in international regulations by adopting our own HELCOM/Baltic tailor-made measures. And in this way, HELCOM acted as a forerunner in the field of safety of navigation and response to accidents at sea by adopting a voluminous package of measures.

In the future, I count on the role of HELCOM to communicate from non-EU States in the catchment area – to for instance the EU – and in this way ensuring that all pressures on the Baltic Sea are being considered. As I also see this as one overall aim of the EU Water Framework Directive I foresee that HELCOM, through since long unified methodologies elaborated to quantify loads from point and diffuse sources, will play an important role also as regards the implementation of the EU Water Framework Directive in the Baltic region. This naturally leads me to refer to today’s important discussions at the round table on the EU Water Framework Directive and the implementation of its principles in the Russian Federation.

The role of HELCOM – drawing up a Baltic Action Plan

HELCOM has a history of providing information on the health of the Baltic Sea area, trends and effectiveness of measures taken. This information is based upon comprehensive inventories on pollution loads coming from point and diffuse sources in the catchment area to the Baltic Sea and linked with the effects that can be seen in the marine environment as a consequence of the pollution loads entering the sea, seen in the light of the effects of the implementation of agreed measures. In this context, information collected and compiled by HELCOM on the state of ecosystems and habitats plays a vital role in protecting the Baltic Sea. Like other organisations, HELCOM has come to grips with the importance of addressing the issue of marine environment protection policy in a truly comprehensive manner – that is dealing with all three components of sustainability: environmental, economic and social. To lay the grounds for this, HELCOM is in the process of developing Ecological Objectives - laying out the boundaries within which we are aiming for a healthy Baltic Sea and making the visions and goals operational. Ecological Objectives have been developed for eutrophication, hazardous substances as well as biodiversity and nature conservation. Hereby, all identified major threats, including safety of navigation and environmental impacts of fisheries, to the Baltic Sea and their impacts to marine life are being addressed. Hereby also the main users and uses of the Baltic Sea as well as its catchment area are being touched upon. These Ecological Objectives are going to be the corner stones in the development of a joint Baltic Action Plan, which shall for a defined eco-region as the Baltic, lay out the borders for the future needed management measures.

Eutrophication – an example

Let me just take as one example the issue of eutrophication and try to outline for you how we deal with this within HELCOM and how we see that this needs to be addressed within a joint Baltic Action Plan.

The over-enrichment of the Baltic Sea by nutrients has several effects on the Baltic Sea ecosystems as well as on our possibility to use and enjoy our sea. Amid direct and indirect effects are intensive plankton blooms, reduced water clarity, replacement of permanent littoral vegetation with annual vegetation, with reduced maximum growth depth, followed by effects on fish fauna and maybe worst: oxygen deficiencies in the sea bottom.

For this reason, an important corner stone in HELCOM’s work is to reduce human induced eutrophication to desirable levels. Which naturally raises the next question: “What are desirable levels?”

Well, in an attempt to define these levels, we are presently developing sub-regional background values for the open sea areas of the Baltic – keeping in mind the need for close coordination and cooperation with similar work undertaken for coastal waters under the EU Water Framework Directive. We all know that it is not possible to turn time back: we will never have a Baltic Sea of the 1800’s. However, when we know these background values that result from natural processes, we can use them as reference for high ecological status. Based on that, we will be able to come up with target levels, a definition of a minimum desirable status of our sea – the sea with good ecological status, the sea with diverse biological components functioning in balance, the sea which is supporting a wide range of sustainable economic and social activities.

Having determined a good status of our sea – we need to address the pressures and driving forces behind the problems and, in the case of eutrophication, define the levels of nutrient inputs which are not harmful for the marine ecosystem. This requires that we link the nutrient loads from activities carried out on land, including also considerable nitrogen inputs from activities outside the catchment area, such as atmospheric deposition from distant land-based sources and shipping in the North Sea area into our sea. HELCOM will evaluate priorities for actions by linking catchment input models and airborne nitrogen deposition models to environmental effect models, thereby forecasting and predicting the effects of various reductions in inputs to the status of the sea.

With the knowledge that agricultural inputs are one of the most significant contributors of waterborne nutrients to the Baltic Sea (almost 60% of total nitrogen and 50% of total phosphorus input), HELCOM will elaborate a thematic assessment report dealing with “Eutrophication – with main focus on inputs from agriculture”. The main objective of this assessment will be to evaluate the consequences of the various alternative agricultural policies of the nine Baltic Coastal countries, and to on the basis of this evaluation give a joint input to the mid-term revision of the EU Common Agricultural Policy in 2009.

And where then - you may rightfully ask – does the joint Baltic Action Plan fit in to all this? Well, if we really want to be successful and want our HELCOM modelling results to have a wider use, then we actually need to go into a dialogue with the agricultural sector. A World Bank/GEF funded project that HELCOM is administering is already taking a step in this direction. Here we are offering farmers in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Kaliningrad and St. Petersburg regions a possibility to join training courses on how to improve the environmental management of their farms, followed by a possibility to obtain a grant and a loan on favourable conditions, in order to implement necessary environmental management measures. Knowing also all too well that the project will not reach all farmers in the Baltic region, HELCOM is stressing the importance of working together with the agricultural producers organisations in all the nine HELCOM Baltic Coastal countries as well as the Baltic-wide represented Baltic Environmental Farmers Forum, which also participates as an observer in HELCOM’s meetings.

We should not forget the extent of the issue of eutrophication as it is not only a matter of curbing inputs from land-based activities such as agriculture, or deciding who is to pay for these measures. Recalling the aim of the Baltic Action Plan to comprehensively integrate all interests, it is important to evaluate and compare the costs of measures taken to ease and eliminate the negative effects of nutrient inputs with the costs of the impacts of eutrophication on for instance fisheries, the value of coastal land and amenities, tourisms, and recreation.

This was of course only meant as one example of the priority areas within HELCOM’s work – but I hope this was also an illustrative one – as the same procedure will be followed when addressing hazardous substances, shipping activities, and the issue of biodiversity and nature conservation (including the environmental effects of fisheries) in the outline for the joint Baltic Action Plan.

Our Joint Baltic Action Plan

In order to ensure that all stakeholders come to terms with which health status it is that we want for the Baltic Sea and how that may affect the various activities that are being carried out, HELCOM will involve all stakeholders, from the civil sector, the financial sectors and the fisheries and agricultural sectors – just to mention a few. Because only if – and when – we manage jointly to establish a Baltic Sea regional identify are we able to jointly guide and agree on the development of coordinated initiatives supporting both the economic, social and environmental aspects – and in this way ensuring a healthy Baltic Sea also for future generations. Such a common identity is important not only for us living in the Baltic Region but also when we want to get the attention of outsiders to our region’s needs. I see our gathering during the next two days as a first step in discussing the outline of our joint Baltic Action Plan.

For more information contact:

Nikolay Vlasov

Information Secretary

Helsinki Commission

Katajanokanlaituri 6 B

FI-00160 Helsinki, Finland

Tel. (dir.): + 358 9 6220 2235

Fax: +358 9 6220 2239

E-mail: nikolay.vlasov@helcom.fi